Aide: Butterworth Doesn't Want In On Island Fuss

July 29, 1987|By United Press International

TALLAHASSEE — An aide to Attorney General Bob Butterworth denied Tuesday that Butterworth asked officials to request an advisory opinion from him in the legal fight over the development of an environmentally sensitive island.

Deputy Attorney General Jim York also questioned why a lawyer for a state land-use planning agency and a lawyer for the company that wants to develop Fort George Island near Jacksonville raised identical objections to such an opinion from Butterworth.

C. Laurence Keesey, attorney for the Department of Community Affairs, and William Hyde of Tallahassee, representing Fairfield Communities Inc., both accused Butterworth of bias against the developer in letters dated Monday.

Keesey also said Butterworth asked Jacksonville officials to request an advisory opinion from Butterworth's office, which Keesey said was improper.

York said staff in Butterworth's department of legal affairs still were researching whether such an opinion was proper. He denied Butterworth solicited the request for an opinion or that Butterworth was biased. York's letter was addressed to both Keesey and Hyde ''because your letters are virtually the same in substance and convey essentially identical protests,'' York wrote.

Keesey and Hyde both referred to Butterworth's support for a state or federal park on the island, where Fairfield wants to build a 1,343-unit housing development. Both suggested Butterworth's stance might taint any advisory opinion.

The Department of Community Affairs must review the proposed development under state environmental protection laws. A problem arose because the department's director, Tom Pelham, represented Fairfield before his appointment by Gov. Bob Martinez.

In a letter dated July 21, Ray Newton, director of planning for the city of Jacksonville, asked Butterworth several legal questions relating to the development. Normally, the attorney general may issue non-binding advisory opinions only on matters of general law and not about specific matters such as the Fairfield project, Keesey wrote.